Perfect Pitch? How about NO pitch

[Michel Lachance]

PDtek@aol.com wrote:
> 
> >Did you ever have (I know you have) a customer who walked over to the
> >piano, strikes one key and says, "That B is definately off"?
> 
> How about the customer that claims the top half octave or so is producing no
> pitch, only a thumping noise? This is perhaps one of the touchiest customer
> relations problems I have run into and I sometimes wonder how others handle
> this situation. It's a fact of life that as we grow older, (or sometimes for
> other reasons), we experience varying degrees of high frequency hearing loss
> and several people I have tuned for cannot hear the top notes of the piano.
> Even though I can hear them, to the customer the absence of these notes is a
> reality. How then can I retain their faith in my abilities when I cannot fix
> something that doesn't need fixed, when to their ears it does. I'm not sure
> that explaining what I perceive to be the problem would go over well with
> most people. We all have a certain amount of vanity and sensitivity about our
> shortcomings, especially when we don't feel that there is one. I hate to lose
> cutomers because I was not able to "fix" their problem.
> 
> I have had my own hearing tested by an audiologist and have some high
> frequency hearing loss myself, most likley from playing in those dang rock
> bands in my youth. Fortunatly, my hearing loss is well above the range of the
> piano. I just know that when they say they are playing beeps in my headphones
> and I don't hear them, it's hard to believe they really exist. Again, what we
> perceive is reality.
> 
> Dave Bunch

Dave,

If you are a registered members of the PTG, which means that you have 
sucessfully passed the tuning test, you could tell your customer that 
even though he or she cannot hear the notes you have tuned in the top 
octaves, master tuners who can hear in that register have already stated 
you can procede an excellent tuning.

Usually, people are more inclined to trust the ear than a Electronic 
Tuning Device.  However, if you are using a ETD in those occasions, you 
have an objective criteria to prove the rightness of your tuning.  If 
the customer cannot hear the note, he still can see the lights that stop 
on each notes.

Michel Lachance, RPT